WHO ARE YOU KIDDING, EMMA?
Actress ridiculed after saying that pupils are being denied water in ‘Dickensian’ Britain
DAME Emma Thompson has made the astonishing claim that pupils are being denied tap water while suffering ‘Dickensian’ poverty levels.
She said poor children are spending their lunch allowance on bottled water, leaving them with hardly any money for food.
The Labour- supporting actress even said water fountains are being broken ‘on purpose’ in some schools to boost bottled water sales.
The Government said it ‘ did not believe’ her claim because it is illegal for schools to withhold water and those doing do would face action from the Education Secretary.
And campaigners accused her of ‘over- egging’ the issue to ‘fly the flag for socialism’ and garner support for the Labour Party.
In TV and radio interviews yesterday, Dame Emma said that up to 30 per cent of children are living in deprivation, with many of them turning up to school hungry.
One girl, she claimed, recently told her she ‘pushes down on her stomach so it won’t growl in class’.
The Nanny McPhee star made her claims in her role as ambassador for an inquiry co-ordinated by the Food Foundation think-tank, which is funded by poverty charities.
The report was based on interaverage, views with children and professionals, which suggested some schools were not making tap water available at meal times.
Appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme, Dame Emma said: ‘We’ve got statistics and they’re dreadful, they’re positively Dickensian – I mean 20 to 30 per cent of children living in poverty in the fifth richest economy in the world.’
She added: ‘People don’t want to talk about it, to admit to it. Children feel – and this breaks my heart – they feel shame about going hungry. One child described to me how she pushes down on her stomach so it won’t growl in class.’
She praised the teaching unions for publicising child hunger and paid tribute to school staff who feed children with their own money.
She hit out at those who are ‘guilty of assuming’ that these are ‘situations where parents are just being feckless’ when so many parents are caught in a ‘poverty trap’.
And she said a large chunk of the allowance children are given if they are eligible for free school meals can be taken up by buying bottled water rather than food.
‘In some schools there isn’t even water, there’s no free water,’ she said. ‘They have to spend their, on £2.30 that they have every day for food, on a bottle of water, which costs 90p. That’s madness.’
Later, on Sky News, she said: ‘In many schools the fountains are broken and are not mended, and in some schools the fountains were broken on purpose so that water in plastic bottles could be sold.
‘If you’ve got £2.30 and you’ve got a bottle of water to buy, then you’ve got hardly anything left.’
The report was produced by the Children’s Future Food Inquiry, led by a committee of crossbench MPs and charity chiefs.
Evidence was gathered from workshops with nearly 400 children, an academic review, polling of children aged 11-18, more than 100 submissions from those working with children, and analysis of government data.
The report said that ‘throughout the inquiry’ children reported ‘limited access’ to water and ‘fountains not being available in dining halls’.
It added: ‘Children also told us that in some schools they had to spend their meal allowance on purchasing bottled water as water was not freely available.’
The report did not mention fountains being broken ‘ on purpose’ and the think-tank did not respond when asked about Dame Emma’s claim.
The Department for Education said that it was illegal for schools to refuse children free water.
A spokesman said: ‘We do not believe any teacher would refuse a child water. Legislation already states that pupils must have access at all times to free, fresh drinking water and it is for individual schools to decide how best to offer this free drinking water.
‘If water is not made available, we would expect parents to raise the issue with the head teacher through the school’s complaints policy in the first instance.
‘If required, the matter could be escalated to the board of governors and ultimately the Education Secretary, who can issue a direction to
‘People don’t want to talk about it’
the school.’ Former head teacher Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘This is not general practice. Most teachers will not deny children water.
‘She is over- egging it. Emma Thompson is trying to promote Labour’s view. She’s flying the kite for socialism and she’s trying to distract people from the fundamental issues in the education system. Blaming them on water is a lame excuse.
‘The way out of poverty is through children and their parents being literate. And parents have been de-skilled by our Left-wing education system.’ Mark Lehain, of Parents and Teachers for Excellence, said: ‘This report suggests that there’s work to do in some schools ensuring that children feel they can get to water when they need to, but I’d be amazed if claims about fountains being switched off to boost sales of bottled drinks was remotely true. This feels like apocryphal stories taken as fact.’ Dame Emma, who flew from Los Angeles to join the Extinction Rebellion protests in London over Easter, also admitted she might be seen as ‘hypocritical’ for travelling by plane. And she also said that although she now feels ‘less connected’ to Labour, she has been a long-term supporter and would be unlikely to vote for anyone else.
Her comments about food and water in schools are likely to be useful to Labour, which has been campaigning hard against the Conservatives over ‘austerity’ and ‘child poverty’.